Partner of reporter who broke NSA stories detained

Aug. 18, 2013
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Reporter Glenn Greenwald / Lia De Paula, AFP/Getty Images

by John Bacon, USA TODAY

by John Bacon, USA TODAY

The domestic partner of the journalist who broke a series of stories revealing mass surveillance programs by the U.S. National Security Agency was held for almost nine hours Sunday by British authorities at London's Heathrow airport on his way home to Rio de Janeiro.

David Miranda, a Brazilian citizen who lives with The Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, was returning through London from a trip to Berlin when he was stopped under a controversial British law. The law applies only at airports, ports and border areas and allows officers to stop, search, question and detain individuals.

The Guardian reports that Miranda, 28, was held for the maximum the law allows before officers must release or formally arrest the individual. According to official figures, only one in 2,000 people detained are kept for more than six hours, the Guardian said.

Scotland Yard released little information, saying only that Miranda was detained at 8:05 a.m. Sunday and released at 5 p.m. No arrest was made. Officials confiscated electronics equipment including his mobile phone, laptop, camera, memory sticks, DVDs and games consoles, the Guardian website said.

Greenwald, an American, has written a series of stories revealing the NSA's electronic surveillance programs and national security programs in Britain, most based on information passed to him by Edward Snowden. Snowden, an American granted temporary asylum in Russia, is a wanted man in the United States.

"This is a profound attack on press freedoms and the news-gathering process," Greenwald said of Miranda's detention. He said the treatment of Miranda was "clearly intended to send a message of intimidation to those of us who have been reporting on the NSA" and similar activities in Britain.

Sergio Danese, undersecretary for consular affairs at Brazil's Foreign Ministry, told The New York Times that Brazil's consul general and embassy officials helped resolve the situation. Miranda did leave England for Brazil, where Miranda and Greenwald live, Danese said.